Trust
by Elma MacBetsy
Summary: Sometimes, John just has to trust him. Rated for mild drug references


**Old piece I found on my laptop, written well before series 3 ever began. Hope you like :)**

Sometimes

When his mind doesn't work the way Sherlock's does

* * *

_The hand hitting the opposite wall of the Baker Street flat catches him by surprise, and, even with all his training and experience, he can't help but jump._

"_Of course! Why didn't I see?" The tone, the pitch, the words… They suggest irritation to John, but when Sherlock's head snaps around towards him, the man is practically grinning._

"_See what?" John asks. His filler is unnecessary; Sherlock does not need prompting. But this is the role John plays, and he plays it well. _

"_Oh, we've both been so _foolish_, John!" The 'we' is, of course, a formality. The fact that John missed some seemingly insignificant detail is not a surprise to either of them. But despite that, Sherlock's wide, excited eyes meet his own, as if expecting him to understand just from that. _

_He doesn't, of course, so he shrugs and looks on curiously._

"_The sock drawer!" Sherlock exclaims. "The sock drawer, John!" _

"_Well, what about it?" Sherlock sighs dramatically._

"_Isn't it obvious?" John can only shrug again. "His son isn't his son."_

"_You got that from the…sock drawer?" He never fails to be amazed at what his flatmate can do. But Sherlock just sighs again._

"_No, I got that from the fact that his wife had an affair 20 years ago, at exactly the time the son must have been conceived!" A frown spreads over John's face._

"_Did she? How do you know?" The way Sherlock looks at him makes him suspect another comment about his, and everybody else's, intelligence is soon to be made. _

"_The _sock drawer_, John!"_

* * *

When it's out of his control

* * *

_He's fairly used to be being on both ends of a gun. Certainly, he's seen each side enough to know which he prefers, and it certainly isn't the one which involves a revolver pointing at his face._

_It's not as bad as it could be though. He's starting to adapt to the position he'd been in ever since an 'interested party' had turned up at their home, and given Sherlock both an extra incentive to solve the mystery, and a tighter schedule. Ever since Sherlock had disappeared through the front door, promising John a prompt return. _

_But that was a while ago now. At least, it's been long enough for him to consider what seemed like hundreds of escape plans, and then dismiss them all when he realised each one ended with him getting shot. _

_Even without the bruises covering his currently aching body, his vision blurring every so often from a potential concussion and the should muscle he suspects he's torn, it isn't likely he could take his kidnapper in a fight. _

_The only weapon to which he really has access is the one he's looking down the barrel of. _

_If he moves more than an inch, he'll probably be shot, although he hasn't actually tested that theory. _

_If he speaks, he thinks he'll probably be shot too._

_No, there is only one way of getting out of this, and it all depends on the ability of a consulting detective to not play games for once. _

_All John can do is to believe, wholeheartedly, that Sherlock will come for him._

* * *

When the alternative is worse

* * *

_John wonders when life with Sherlock became…not mundane, but…ordinary. In a good way, he thinks, because he likes how ordinary it feels to push his key into 221B Baker Street's lock and to twist it and for it turn and click easily because Mrs. Hudson is nothing if not attentive and of course she always keeps it oiled. He likes taking his coat off and hanging it on his favourite hook by the door, and he likes that he always has to move Sherlock's scarf off of the hook first because Sherlock won't listen to him when he explains that a scarf doesn't need a hook of its own, and that John's coat _does_. _

_He likes climbing the stairs, even though they creak on every step which makes it absolutely impossible to sneak up on Sherlock, which just _once_ he'd like to do, to catch him out, take _him_ by surprise for a change, but he still tries to be quiet all the same because he still _hopes_ that one day he'll manage._

_He likes that he has routine, and that he always thinks the same things every time he climbs the stairs._

_He also likes how ordinary it feels to push his key into his and Sherlock's flat's lock and jiggle it around a bit because it always has stuck and neither him nor Sherlock really has the inclination to fix it, and Mrs. Hudson is not their housekeeper, of course, but this is still the only thing she's ever insisted they sort out by themselves, which John thinks is really quite ridiculous when he knows from experience just how efficient she is when it comes to locks._

_He likes walking straight through to the kitchen to put the shopping away, because there's always something he's had to buy on his way home from work and obviously Sherlock is _never_ going to do it._

_He even likes trying to work around the body parts in the fridge and the experiments on the table and the clutter of detective gear covering the worktops, because it reminds him that his version of ordinary isn't actually ordinary at all, and that's why he likes it so much. _

_What he doesn't like is the fact that he only realises all of this when something out of the ordinary happens._

_He doesn't go straight to the kitchen when he comes in, because Sherlock is lying on his back on the sofa, feet dangling off the end, with one arm thrown over his face and the other hanging limply over the side._

_This isn't what stops him in his tracks though – this is not out of the ordinary. What he notices – and he must have spent too much time playing detective, he thinks – is nicotine patches. Or rather the lack of nicotine patches on the limp arm. Or, to be even more exact, what he can see on the arm that he never has done before _because_ of the nicotine patches._

"_Sherlock…?" And that's not the question he wants to ask – it's not even a question. But it's enough, because Sherlock lifts his arm away from his eyes just long enough to look where John is looking before dropping it back down._

"_They're old," he responds, flipping his arm over so the underside is, as usual, hidden from view, and John can detect nothing but boredom in the voice. _

_He's seen this kind of thing before, and stands, mentally comparing the needle marks on Sherlock's arm with the countless other examples he's come across as a doctor in attempt to judge the truth in Sherlock's statement. _

_In the end, he comes up with nothing. He didn't get a good enough look to really be able to tell whether the fresher looking marks were days old, or weeks or months. He could ask, possibly should ask, but Sherlock hasn't lied to him before – he hopes – and he's got enough of a past of his own to know that he wouldn't want people digging it up just to make themselves feel better. _

"_I bought bread" John tells the unresponsive Sherlock, because he's starting to feel like a bit of an idiot just standing there. "I'll just go put it in the cupboard, shall I?" And ordinary begins again._

* * *

When there isn't time for anything else

* * *

_There are so many things he'd rather be doing right now. Anything, really. But he doesn't dwell on that. He can keep a level head in a crisis – if he couldn't, he'd picked the wrong career several times in his life. His fist tightens imperceptibly around the cold metal handle of the gun he's clutching, finger creeping closer to the trigger. _

_It's like something out of a third rate, straight-to-DVD thriller. The crime was solved, the murderer identified, but that wasn't enough for Sherlock, who always had to know why. And so he'd run in blind, and everything had gone to hell from there. _

_The room is impossibly dark, with lights that flicker to life for a split second every so often. Not long enough for John to even attempt to get his bearings, but enough to get a pretty clear image lodged in his brain of what's going on at Sherlock's end. A fight. A fight that he knows Sherlock is losing, and there's not a damn thing he can do. He doesn't know where Sherlock is. He doesn't even know where _he_ is. He can hear rustling fabric, and the occasional smack of skin on skin, but apart from that he could easily be alone right now._

"_Aim directly in front of you". It's Sherlock's voice, quieter than he expected and croaky, but definitely Sherlock, nonetheless. The hoarseness is something he can't quite place – was Sherlock developing an infection before? He doesn't _think_ so, but it's possible…_

_A strained gasp gives him the answer. _

"_Arm" coughing "perpen…dicular to body." He follows the orders, falling back on the comfort of an action performed many times before. It's easier than thinking about what Sherlock's attacker might be doing, whether he's being chocked, strangled, suffocated… _

"_When I say now…fire." The sentence is once more broken by wheezing, but the words are clear. So he places his finger more firmly on the trigger, prepares to contract his muscles as soon as he hears the word._

_But, for the first time in as long as he can remember, he falters. _

_Because he can't do this._

_Because he doesn't know what's going on._

_Because he simply cannot believe, this time, that Sherlock does either._

_Because John isn't making a sound, and Sherlock is busy, and there's no way Sherlock knows where he is._

_Because he certainly doesn't know where Sherlock is._

_Because he cannot – will not – be the one to take Sherlock's life. _

_He tries to calm his breathing. He loosens his grip around the metal. He looks into the black, and pretends he's looking at Sherlock, and thinks of the words he needs to make his friend understand._

"_Now…"_

_His finger squeezes. The gun fires. He's taken his shot in the dark without even thinking. _

_He hopes and prays with all his being that Sherlock was right._

_He hears two bodies fall to the floor, but only one places a hand on his forearm moments later, applying gentle pressure, and gives him another instruction in a warm but still rasping voice._

"_John. Put the gun down."_

* * *

When it's the only thing he knows

* * *

_He doesn't know when he started following Sherlock almost unquestioningly. Well, that isn't strictly speaking true – he does know. It's what he's been doing since the very second he met the man, handed over his phone and agreed to move in. And that was when Sherlock was a perfect stranger. _

_Now it's more than that – so much more._

_He doesn't want to put it in clichéd terms. He's not going to wax poetic about knowing Sherlock would catch him if he were to fall. _

_It's true – but it's just not _them_. _

_He could tailor the old, overused phrases to their specific experiences; perhaps deliver the lines with a sense of irony. Something about how he'd wait for Sherlock until the end of his life, and how close it had already come to that once or twice. A grin, an eye roll and the moment would pass._

_But that's not right either, because Sherlock deserves more than glibness. _

_He can look at in practical terms._

_The surprise he feels when Sherlock doesn't quite live up to the expectations that John didn't even know he had of his friend, and how it almost feels like betrayal, even though he knows it isn't._

_How even then, he still comes when he's asked, without questions – usually – because he knows it means he's needed, in some way or another. And not just to pass a book or lend his phone, no matter what Sherlock claims._

_Of course, maybe that's too practical – at least, too practical for Sherlock, a man of thought and deduction._

_Because John has always come when he's asked to – as a military doctor, there isn't time for questions. And the disappointment is present only when Sherlock fails to meet John's standards of humanity – it's the same regard in which he holds almost everybody else._

_And Sherlock is _not_ everybody else. _

_When it comes down to it, he can't explain it – his feelings, his words, his actions. He's only aware of one thing._

* * *

He just has to trust him


End file.
